Thursday, August 18, 2011

Can You Draw?

In my earliest memories my dad was a student at Art Center College of Design. People would always ask me, "Are you going to be an artist like your daddy, when you grow up?" I remember being bewildered by that question and responding with "I already am." This of course made all the adults laugh a lot, but I didn't understand why. Look at this baby:That is my mom, me, and Sara when I was five. (Sara had really dark hair when she was a babykins.)

I even had a picture published in The Friend!
Number 13, that is a picture of singing time in primary, at church. (I just noticed the bear creeper in the corner, he totally wants to eat my well behaved primary child!)
This is a picture of people saying "No" to a bad guy offering them alcohol. (Notice the hat, hats are untrustworthy.) Also the sun is jump roping and the cloud is roller skating. No one ever offers them alcohol.

I have been reading about child drawings. The development stages are pretty interesting. It seems that most children draw very similarly in the beginning, but by their teenage years some decide that they are not artists and some decide that they are. The people who decide they are not artists often feel like they do not have the magical innate ability that artists have and that they cannot learn it. Perhaps they think it is a mutant gift that some people are born with and others can never acquire. This is interesting because pretty much everyone starts out so similarly.
I remember making this recipe. (It reads downward in two columns.) As you can see you are supposed to put one large marshmallow in a bowl with cake mix and 1 tsp of water. Put that in a pan, and put the pan in an oven (A. Vin), then you wait as long as a cake would take. The idea was that the cake would have marshmallow filling.

I wonder if some of the reason that some people stop drawing is related to the encouragement that they receive. My mom actually made this recipe with me, (although we also added eggs and oil). The marshmallow did not spread throughout the cake as a gooey filling, the way I had imagined it would, but we still made it anyway.
Mickey Mouse, and his sentient house plant.
Self portrait with non-sentient plant.
The Escher phase.
I think everyone can learn to draw, do you? I know some people might be more creative, or more interested, but just like math, or chemistry, if you really want to do it you can.
Thanks Mom and Dad, for encouraging me to draw and make things! (Also thanks for teaching me how to spell "oven".)

Maybe some people reading this wish they could draw, if you do, then guess what? It is your lucky day because after today you can! You just need to try.
Plus, all you really need to be able make is stick figures, for comics, and everyone is happy.

3 comments:

I love this. I am going to keep this in mind while my kids grow up. I remember winning a prize in elementary school for my artwork, and then some art teacher told me I obviously didn't have a natural talent for art in 7th grade. Luckily for her I'm not easily discouraged by people who teach other people how to draw a building with a ruler. Ruler schmooler!

This makes me think of one of my favorite books, "The Little Prince." The narrator as a kid draws a boa constrictor digesting an elephant, but the grown-ups all think its a hat and tell him to do more sensible things, so he gives up drawing. SAD!

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McEwens

I am Rachel McEwen, even though I have pictures of Bryce McEwen on here he actually has very little to do with this blog. That is why it is full of girly stuff. We live in California and are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We like to play outside and do projects of all shapes and sizes. I am making this blog to chronicle our projects big and small.